About halfway through my summer project I managed to spill a half pint of orange squash on the keyboard of my beloved MacBook. When I tried to switch it on again I was confronted with the dreaded flashing question mark and the guys at the Mac shop said I'd fried my hard-drive.
Luckily, about a week later it fired up again and everything was still there so my advice to anyone who does the same is to leave the machine for a week before trying to turn it on again as the moisture may still be inside.
The next problem was sticky keys. There don't seem to be any good tutorials online for removing and cleaning MacBook keys and hence this page.
Most keys are attached with the same mechanism: a kind of "picnic table" gizmo attaches them to a metal frame on the laptop. This has two prongs on the left and a bar on the right to attach it to the metal frame. The prongs fit into two holes on the frame: one top-left and the other bottom-left. The bar slides under a hook along the right side.
To remove the "normal" keys, use a thin, flat tool such as a pair of tweezers or a small screwdriver to get under the key at the bottom-left corner and push the prong out of its hole. Once it's out, pull the key down from the top-right corner and wiggle until the left hand side of the key is detached. Then lift the whole key up and to the right and it should come cleanly off with the picnic table attached. For the function keys you probably need to use the tool for both prongs and note that F6 (num lock) has the prongs on the right hand side.
Larger keys eg. Delete have a stabilising bar as well. To remove the Delete key slide the tool in flat at the right hand edge of the key and run it up and across the top to the top-left corner. This should snap the bar out of its place. The prongs on the Delete key are on the top-right and top-left and the bar on the bottom. After the metal bar is detached it can be removed as above. (Shift, Tab etc. may be the same but I didn't try them myself).
The Enter key has two picnic tables and a metal stabilising bar. Remove the bar by putting the tool in the top edge and running it clockwise down the right side. The prongs for the top picnic table are on the left hand side as with the standard keys. The lower one has four prongs instead of a two prongs and a bar but they fit under hooks rather than into holes so they can be wiggled free once the other connections are loose.
To wash the keys I put them into a plastic tub, covered them with water and sprayed window cleaner into the water, stirred it and left them for about 10 minutes. Then I dried them with paper towel and left them to air dry for another hour.
To reattach the key, pop the picnic table off by prising with the tool under the end where the prongs pop into two little holders and sliding the other end out. Fit it onto the keyboard by sliding the bar under the hook, fitting one prong into its hole and then using the tool to squeeze the other one in. Finally, put the key back on by sliding it onto the picnic table attachments on the right and then pushing down firmly until it clicks.
For the Delete key, attach the picnic table and the stabilising bar to the base then hook the key at the bottom and push down the top to click onto the picnic table and bar at the same time. For the Enter key, attach the picnic tables to the base and the bar to the keycap. Hook the bar into the loop on the base, slide the top of the picnic tables into their positions on the right side and press down on the left until it clicks on.